patch

The computer tool patch is a Unix program that updates text files according to instructions contained in a separate file, called a patch file. The patch file (also called a patch for short) is a text file that consists of a list of differences and is produced by running the related diff program with the original and updated file as arguments. Updating files with patch is often referred to as applying the patch or simply patching the files. History The original patch program was written by Larry Wall (who went on to create the Perl programming language) and posted to mod.sources (which later became comp.sources.unix) in May 1985. patch was added to XPG4, which later became POSIX. Wall's code remains the basis of "patch" programs provided in OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and schilytools. The Open Software Foundation, which merged into The Open Group, is said to have maintained a derived version. The GNU project/FSF maintains its patch, forked from the Larry Wall version. The repository is different from that of GNU diffutils, but the documentation is managed together.